CPS works toward returning 2 children found living in bus to mother

Sherrie Shorten, right, waits in a hearing to determine whether she will have her two children returned to her. (Cody Duty/Chronicle)

Sherrie Shorten’s efforts to transform a yellow school bus into a home may be enough to persuade Child Protective Services to return her children, ages 5 and 11.

The children were discovered living mostly unsupervised in the makeshift home that authorities described as filthy and reeking from sewage on March 7. Shorten and her husband were in prison at the time, serving 18-month sentences for embezzlement, and left a 60-year-old aunt in charge.

Shorten, 47, was released from prison about two weeks ago and has since been working to restore the bus that was supposed to serve as the family’s temporary home while they built a new house on the wooded lot near Splendora in Montgomery County.

Her husband, Mark, is supposed to be released July 9. Both were convicted of embezzling $126,000 in federal money given to Hurricane Ike victims.

At a hearing Wednesday in Conroe, CPS caseworkers praised Shorten for her cooperation, saying she is doing everything she can to get her children back. The agency told visiting Judge P.K. Reiter that they plan to reunite the family provided the bus meets fire and safety requirements.

Shorten doesn’t have a job yet, but on Wednesday she said volunteers are coming to clean up the property where the bus is located.

Reiter made an appeal from the bench for someone to temporarily donate mobile home to the family while they get their lives in order.

While she was in prison, Shorten said her aunt reported being “overwhelmed” after having to get a job to support the children and being gone from the home 12 hours a day.